I have to say, most GPs don’t feel comfortable or competent to initiate insulin therapy. To them it presents a serious risk and liability. After all a patient can have a hypo and suffer serious harm. And who made the “decision” to initiate insulin. That is right the GP. The GP is the one who has to carry malpractice insurance. And if a GP feels any apprehension about whether to initiate insulin they will protect themselves.
Unfortunately this leaves us patients in a quandary. Do we wait and suffer ongoing harm waiting for someone in the health system to finally go out on a limb to help us? Or do we make the decision ourselves. I claim that these sorts of decisions should not be made for us. This is about our lives and we should be able to make our own well-informed decisions. I had a number of doctors refuse my request for insulin. I decided to learn all about how to safely use insulin and make the decision myself. It is going on seven years ago that I made my decision. You can read about it in my post from December 2010 called “Taking Control and Starting Insulin.”
I would also add that when I returned to see my GP three months later and declared that I had started insulin on my own, he complimented me on my dramatically improved control and suggested that maybe I would do better on a modern insulin rather than R and NPH. Apparently he was fine that I was on insulin so long as he didn’t have to make the medical decision to initiate insulin therapy.
Most endos line up their patients to see them every three months and are fully booked for three months. My favorite trick to get in to see an endo is to ask to be put on the “waiting list” or to be called if there is any opening. Patients cancel. It happens. You might get in tomorrow.